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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29186250">Taking a While to Return</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/acommontater'>acommontater</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aged-Up Character(s), Bittersweet, Dreamscapes, F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Season 2 LoK</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:54:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,780</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29186250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/acommontater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Send me someone who understands, she pleads with the waves, with the moon. Please. I promise I’ll take care of them, I’ll help them, and I’ll love them too.</p><p>Years later, the sea spits up a boy from it’s depths, she meets the moon, and her name becomes a legendary part of history.</p><p>/</p><p>Years and decades later, with countless accolades and achievements to her name, she dreams she is on an island.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aang/Katara (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Taking a While to Return</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"Once you meet someone, you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return." - Zeniba, Spirited Away.</p><p>This was originally posted on ye olde tumblr blogge @ appassaddle, from the prompt  "That scene at the end of Spirited Away where Haku is telling Chihiro to cross the field to her parents without looking back, except it’s Aang and Katara in a shared lucid dream in which they’re kids again and Aang is telling her to go return to their real life children without him because he’ll be dead when she wakes." from vanillabutspicy ...this isn't quite that, but it's what kicked it off, so it's getting cross-posted here as well.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>She stares out at the steady, ever present waves and begs the water to bring her a friend. Squeezes her eyes shut and wishes with her whole heart that somehow the ocean would just suddenly spit out someone to save her from this crushing loneliness.</p><p>Katara loves her family and everyone else in the village, really. She loves her dad and her grandma and her brother. But… its lonely being the only one her age, the only waterbender.</p><p>Send me someone who understands, she pleads with the waves, with the moon. Please. I promise I’ll take care of them, I’ll help them, and I’ll love them too.</p><p>Years later, the sea spits up a boy from it’s depths, she meets the moon, and her name becomes a legendary part of history.</p><p> </p><p>/</p><p> </p><p>Years and decades later, with countless accolades and achievements to her name, she dreams she is on an island.</p><p>Or, more accurately, on the water near an island.</p><p> </p><p>Katara laughs and skims over the waves faster. Her iceboard skips across the water with ease and she looks back over her shoulder to shoot a teasing grin at her opponent.</p><p>“I’m gonna win this time!” Aang calls, crouching down on his own board as he tries to catch up with her.</p><p>“In your dreams!” She returns.</p><p>They crash clumsily onto the sand of the beach within moments of each other. Katara cheers in victory, dissolving into laughter as Aang adds some dramatic somersaults before he flops down onto the sand in defeat. He pouts exaggeratedly for a moment before joining in her laughter.</p><p>It makes something pang in her chest. He looks so young. She rests a hand on her heart as it aches for a moment, even in their mirth. (In the moment she cannot place why it feels so odd to be young.)</p><p>Aang gets up, casually bending the sand off of himself as he walks over to her. He looks over her shoulder, face falling ever so slightly as he looks at the sky. Katara glances back as well, seeing the sun dipping low over the water. Aang reaches out to take her hand and she takes it, casually tangling their fingers together as they walk towards the path away from the beach. (Something about the sand under her feet feels… wrong, but she can’t place what it is. It’s almost like the grains are slipping from under her before her foot even touches the ground.)</p><p>“We’ve had a good day, haven’t we?” Aang asks cheerfully.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s been great.” Katara squeezes his hand. “I’ve missed you.”</p><p>Aang gives her small smile. There’s something that lingers in his expression as he looks at her, like he’s trying to memorize her. She frowns, then waves it off.</p><p>“Haha, weird, I don’t know why I said that.” She lets out a short laugh. Aang just squeezes her hand back.</p><p>“It’s fine. I’ve missed you too.”</p><p>They walk through a meandering forest path. Katara thinks there should be a village coming up soon, but can’t recall what it’s called. It doesn’t matter in the moment. They turn a corner in the path and…</p><p>…they are walking across the tundra of the South Pole. Snow falls gently as they walk, boots crunching across the icy ground. They don’t head towards the lights of town, instead heading towards the hills beyond.</p><p>“This is just like the first day we spent together.” Katara remarks as they approach the sledding hills.</p><p>“It’s a shame there aren’t any otterpenguins around.” Aaang says.</p><p>They sit on the edge of the hills, feet hanging down below them.  Katara leans against Aang and he lets his arm fall to a loose hug around her back. She closes her eyes, enjoying the small bubble of warm air that Aang always carried with him in the poles. It’s been so long since she’s felt it. (They’d just been to visit the other week, it’s hasn’t been <em>that long</em>… right?)</p><p>Aang shifts and looks behind them. Then he stands up, offering his hand to help her up.</p><p>“We should keep walking.” He says simply.</p><p>Katara takes his hand and gets to her feet. They start walking again, across the ice fields. The snow starts falling faster and Katara cups her hands to collect the flakes in her palms. They pile up quickly against her gloves. (No cold seeps into her fingers, merely the faint weight of the snow settling, like a memory.) When she looks up, Aang has vanished from sight.</p><p>She looks back the way they’d came, the faint lights of town in the distance. She drops the snow and turns quickly, searching through the whirling storm for Aang. Just as she’s about to truly worry, he reappears at her side. He grabs her hand and pulls her forward.</p><p>“I found something, come look!”</p><p>They trek across the ice quickly, Aang excitedly leading her onward. The snow comes thicker until the buildings behind them all but fade from view. They come up to a thick crack in the ice and Aang stops.</p><p>He suddenly looks back from where they’d came as if hearing something she couldn’t. Katara looks back too and finds the glacier field they’d just crossed has become a rolling spring meadow. Small, brightly colored spirits drift between the flowers.</p><p>A breeze blows through the grass and blooms, they ripple as it passes by. Aang’s clothes billow gently for a moment and he smiles. Katara can’t feel the wind. There’s no sensation on her skin, no movement to her skirt. The only thing she can feel is Aang’s warm hand in hers. He turns back to look at her, smiling gently.</p><p>“It’s time for you to go back now.” He says.</p><p>“Go back?” She asks.</p><p> </p><p>Aang turns them both back around. Where there has been a deep crack in the glacier is now a broad river. On the other side Katara can see the other part of the meadow continuing on over the rolling hills. An elegant bridge arches over the deep waters, like the ones they’d crossed over so many times through the Earth Kingdom. Far on the other side of the meadow she can see the entrance to a hall of some kind. Shadowy figures pass back and forth beyond the entryway.</p><p>When she looks back at Aang, he steps forward and kisses her cheek.</p><p>“It’s okay, they’re waiting for you.” He says quietly.</p><p>She wants to ask <em>who</em>, to give them a few more moments together, to stay in the beautiful dream world. But she knows who waits for her. Aang knows as well. Neither of them have ever been inclined to be selfish.</p><p>They walk down to the bridge, hands swinging easily between them. They stop a length away from the riverbank.</p><p>“This is as far as I can go.” Aang says.</p><p>Katara lets go of his hand and reaches up to cup his dear face in her own palms. He lifts his hands to cover hers and gives her a small smile as she studies him.</p><p>He looks so young here in this carefree moment they’ve allowed themselves to have. Nearly the same age as when they met, young and untouched by the horrors and burdens of war or the weight and joys of life. Katara takes a deep breath. And lets it go.</p><p>“Okay.” She says. She leans in and gives him a kiss goodbye. (The strange not-feeling of the world in-between makes it feel like a memory or an echo of one, the faint recollection of her skin remembering his.) Then she steps back.</p><p>He squeezes her hands and they both let them drop.</p><p>“Don’t look back once you start to cross.” He says as she steps away. “Just focus on where you’re going.”</p><p>(There are stories of people whose spirits get lost in-between worlds. Those who have no anchors to bring them back or who are already lost long before they leave their physical bodies.)</p><p>“I will.” She promises. “I’ll see you again soon.”</p><p>“Hopefully not too soon.” Aang jokes gently. Katara smiles.</p><p>“No, definitely not.”</p><p>They hold hands, until even their fingertips drift apart as she steps towards the bridge. She watches his hand fall back to his side and when she looks up again he is tall and handsome as she remembers in their last years together. She can feel the slight shift in herself too, her spirit remembering her long years as she steps onto the first stone of the bridge platform. She allows herself one last, long look.</p><p>Aang smiles peacefully at her, the gentle spring meadow brimming with strange life behind him.</p><p>It is tempting, for one moment, to stay. To run back and enjoy the beauties offered.</p><p>She turns away and steps up to the curve of the bridge.</p><p>She doesn’t look back.</p><p>There will time in the future for everything else.</p><p>Katara reaches the other side of the bridge and she doesn’t look back to see if the meadow has turned to mist. She crosses the soft grass that feels like nothing beneath her feet and she doesn’t look back to see if the bridge is still standing behind her. She reaches the entry way to the hall, the familiar snow and wood structure at odds with the meadow beneath her and she doesn’t look back to see if the river has turned back to ice and snow. Crossing the threshold is warm and she can hear the sounds of her children and their children waiting for her. She look resolutely forward and enters the hall and…</p><p> </p><p>…she opens her eyes to see the same ceiling above her as she has for years now. She can feel the bed beneath her, still only large enough for one.</p><p>Katara looks out the window and sees the light of the spirit portal cutting through the dark of the Long Night in the distance. She smiles at it’s gentle glow- the dreams had started after Korra had opened the portal years prior and she suspects the two are not unrelated.</p><p>When she looks over at the clock, she finds that she has some hours before she has to get up left yet. But she suspects it will be even les than that with her grandchildren visiting- Rohan is an early riser even by airbender standards and he is old enough now to delight in helping her prepare breakfast for everyone.</p><p>Katara smiles and blows a kiss towards the spirit portal before rolling over and closing her eyes to rest a bit longer. Her old bones aren’t what they used to be, and she needs all the rest she can get to keep up with her family.</p>
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